Perpetual Motion
by Meredith T. Tasaki
Summary: Nine, running. After he dies, he finds himself back in his TARDIS control room. This doesn't entirely surprise him. After all, it is some sort of afterlife, and he can't think of anywhere else that looks remotely like heaven.


Title: Perpetual Motion

Summary: Nine, running. "After he dies, he finds himself back in his TARDIS control room. This doesn't entirely surprise him. After all, it _is_ some sort of afterlife, and he can't think of anywhere else that looks remotely like heaven."

Rating: Mm-- PG.

Disclaimer: The concept of Doctor Who being mine is simply laughable, as I'd certainly have had to have gone through at least one regeneration and a different accent. And I'm reasonably sure I'm not a Time Lord. Though I suppose one can never really be sure...

I have stolen many quotes and lyrics for this fic. I do not know why. A list, in order:

-"When in Rome", Nickel Creek

-So You Want to Be a Wizard, Diane Duane

-"It's All in Your Head", Diamond Rio

-"The World at Large", Modest Mouse

...Let me assure anyone who can't tell that this is a _crazy_ random list. Heh. Don't let it put you off.

Notes: Spoilers up to Parting of the Ways. Well, you could actually probably get by with only a few episodes, but you wouldn't be able to make much sense out of it...

Let me know if I mess this up. I'm picking up the mythology as I go along... Could very well gone hopelessly astray trying to be clever... Not to _mention_ I'm American, and will surely therefore blow the vocabulary all to hell.

(-)

_Where can a dead man go?_

_A question with an answer only dead men know..._

After he dies, he finds himself back in his TARDIS control room. This doesn't entirely surprise him. After all, it _is_ some sort of afterlife, and he can't think of anywhere else that looks remotely like heaven.

Though, as he considers it further, he's still a _little_ bit surprised. He rather expected to find himself in hell. Running around, recklessly, the way he had, getting involved in every muddle, playing god whenever the situation had called for it-- dear lord, the arrogance _alone_ of any _one_ of his incarnations should have been enough to decide it, even ignoring the millions-- billions-- probably trillions of deaths on his head.

Of course, he realizes, this is proceeding too far on assumptions. There's still so many, many ways this could turn out to be hell.

The silence, for one thing; the ship is silent, the voices are silent, the constant hum at the bottom of his mind is silent.

_All those times I wanted to see that place burn. All those times closed-minded fools hailed me as the Herald of the End of Our Great Civilization. Almost makes you wonder if we knew._

He doesn't like irony. Irony usually hurts him.

He takes stock of the situation. Dead; he remembers dying. On his ship; which seemed to still need repairs. Alone, totally and utterly; but he's lived like that before, and maybe there's somebody out there. Maybe everyone is out there, just waiting for him to wake up and understand and come to find them.

Maybe it's heaven. Maybe it's hell. Maybe it can't be defined in such stupid human terms. Maybe it's even just his subconscious, if that lives on after death. Maybe this is what happens to all personalities after regenerations; kept busy somewhere in the subconscious until they're needed or they're jarred awake. Even humans' minds are big enough for that sometimes. Of course, they call it crazy, but there's nothing he can do...

Wherever he's found himself, there's only one way to get answers. There's only one thing to do.

He opens up the console and starts rooting around for the burned switches. "No worries. Just a few months of repairs and we'll be ready to go..."

He stops to get some spare parts, a pot of tea, and a new leather jacket, and cheerfully begins to work.

(-)

"So of course we get these philosophical questions," he rambles cheerfully to the TARDIS on the fifteenth day. "First, all the people who only get one shot at death want to know what it's like before they go. And of course I can't tell them. What could I tell them? Pain, quite a lot of pain, bit of confusion, then you wake up with new hair and a little bit less of your sanity. New hair bit's always annoying; hard to figure out what to do with it. Losing the sanity I can deal with; never liked it that much anyway. And whatever _fatal_ death is like, it isn't like that, and someday it _will_ happen to me too. So I can never tell them anything. Not while I'm alive. If they could only talk to me _now_, of course... but since they're dead too by now, what would be the point?"

Something in the panel sparks and singes him. "Ow. Now, also you've got the mind/body/soul discussions. Line between personality and brain chemistry and memory and whatever that bit is that always stays the same, through everything, still recognisable. Could be retained neural circuitry. Could be the soul. Also, that means I'm a rather magnificent demonstration of the terrible things changing levels of neurotransmitters can do to your mind. This was always a Ritalin incarnation. Well-- they were all Ritalin incarnations, really. 'Cept maybe the first one. Pretty sedate. Could've been treated with therapy. This last one had a bit of serotonin trouble, too. No-- that was probably just the Daleks. They'd get _anybody_ down. Already have."

He pulls out some wires and something cuts his hand. "Ow. And of course they want that explained, too, and what can I tell them? All these years of experience... they think it means I have answers. But it doesn't. All these things I've seen, everything I _can_ see that they never will-- they think it could mean I have answers. I really don't. I don't know if there are any. I don't know any more than they do, in the end... Which is why I keep booting 'em out before they ask the _good_ questions. Ow!"

He waves his hand to ease the sting. "All right, all right! Usually they just get sick of me and leave. I'll be _truthful_, is that what you want? Usually they get sick of me. Don't blame 'em a bit. Want an ordinary life with ordinary children and an ordinary man... that or adventures of their own... that or this..."

He gets up and wipes some coolant off of his hand. "Huh. This is going quicker than I thought it would. Shouldn't take but a few more days. Have I run out of tea again? Be right back..."

The TARDIS hums, seeming just slightly impatient. He wonders what she wants. Might be important, but he'll figure it out.

He always does, eventually.

(-)

The TARDIS is finally fixed, and he can go anywhere and anywhen in the entire universe.

But something's making him stay here.

He stares at the screen; the empty space where Gallifrey should have been. Maybe hell, after all. Then again, even now, he'd hardly go back to that planet by _choice_...

Grief twists your memories and impressions of people, making them seem better and more perfect than they were.

But so does being at the wrong end of an execution, and the Doctor is the last person in the universe who would hold any illusions about the glory of Gallifrey.

But still... he wants it out of his hair, yes, but he wants it _there_, if only so he'll have someone to make his life _truly _miserable so he'll enjoy the running-away-from-murderous-aliens bits more. After all, those bits make up the majority of his life.

So: not entirely heaven. Unsurprising; if there was such a place, there was no possible way they'd be crazy enough to let him in. (_Ignoring _his crimes for the moment, the sheer number of "paradises" he's overturned...)

They are still gone, and silent, and there's not even debris in the space Gallifrey never was.

He supposes that's not the sort of thing he'd want to forget, tempting though it might be. No choice, but that didn't make having chosen any easier...

His world or the universe. Only one decision possible.

But they're dead now, and so is he, and it's time to go find trouble.

(-)

"So, first question: what's this universe like?" he says, and starts to push some buttons. "Earth, the 60's, should do nicely... figure out who's still there..."

The TARDIS dumps him on the wrong continent, but the right decade, and that's close enough for him to figure out what he needs to know.

Yes, the people are still there.

No, it would be far too dangerous at this point to find out if he still is.

Yes, he _has_ been to this place before, because someone insisted on finding out "what really happened". As if anyone ever truly knows, time being the mess that it is.

No, he can't make it across town in time to figure out if his fifth self is still here.

And _yes_, there were _two_ shooters on the grassy knoll.

One of them happened to be an alien planning a very subtle and elaborate coup. Having cleverly obtained the mindprint of Lyndon Johnson, he would be able to control the new President and easily provoke nuclear war with Russia, thus leaving the entire planet ripe to be Altaria-formed.

He dispenses with this diabolical scheme easily and wonders how Five is doing with the giant mutant rats downtown. Well enough, he remembers, assuming he still exists here. There's so many reasons he might not.

Usually when the TARDIS brings him somewhere he didn't ask to go, he remembers, there turns out to be a reason.

Well, preventing the earth from being destroyed again was enough of a reason, wasn't it?

Even if he's dead and this isn't Earth.

Not hell, he decides, and steps back into his ship.

He walks briskly to the console. "So... where to next?"

(-)

_Whither will you go? To what place will you wander?_

_In air or in water, still I am there..._

He's had enough of water at this point to last him the rest of his-- well-- okay, he's dead, so not the rest of his life, and death is sort of permanent, so he imagines he'll get over it eventually, but-- still.

He pauses briefly to dry himself off before setting the TARDIS for the colony of Sahara Seven, so named because of its spectacular and endless deserts. Nice open-air shops. Lovely poetry. Grumpy but good-natured people.

Except when their leaders have just been assassinated, he discovers quickly. Particularly when it was in broad daylight-- in front of masses of people-- by a strange, pale man who appeared out of nowhere.

Why is it always _this_ sort of coincidence he runs into? Why doesn't he ever run into the "Oh look, exactly the part I needed to fix the TARDIS!" sort of coincidence?

...That is, why does he only run into that sort of coincidence after the "Oh dear, thousands of small furry creatures have mistaken me for the devil and broken my TARDIS!" sort of coincidence? It seems a bit unfair.

Then again, if the price for having a good coincidence on its own would be having one of the _nastier_ sorts of coincidences on its own, he'll take what he's given and be grateful.

Fortunately, he's able to convince the Grand Sultan's daughter of his innocence; unfortunately, his ministers assume he's seduced her and sentence both of them to death.

"I'll get us out of this," he promises her; "just give me five minutes and I'll have this lock opened, we'll escape and we'll find the one who killed your father. Then they'll trust you again, and everything will be fine, just fine."

"They never trusted me before," she answers. "They will never trust me again. They never intended to let me have power. They wish to seize it for themselves. Fix it or not, strange Doctor, I shall die. But everything dies."

He can't argue with that, but he tells her again it'll be five minutes because he knows how to get out of shackles like these, even if this particular model is proving a bit tricky, and he can already tell the door will be a piece of cake and they'll have plenty of time to worry about the rest later, when they aren't dead.

"You'll promise me to take revenge on my father's murderer? You will swear it on your life?"

"I'm already dead."

"On your death, then? It makes no difference to me."

"On my death," he says, "I will bring this murderer to justice."

"Our justice. Not yours."

He hesitates, knowing she's asking for the murderer's death. "Seems only fair."

"Through blood and death, I bind you to this promise. Thank you, Doctor. It was a pleasure to meet you."

Six minutes later, he's out of his cell and opening hers.

Six minutes and ten seconds later, he's discovering that her cell was significantly different from his. No shackles, for one thing. Better furniture. Nice window. Bowl of fruit. Mirror. Pitcher of water.

Ceremonial gown and dagger.

She didn't believe him, or else didn't care. He doesn't have time to wonder which; he's in motion again, hearing the guards down the hall.

He escapes, uses the TARDIS to scan for alien technology, finds the assassin, and gives him to the secret police. It's their laws he's violated, after all.

They'll kill the man. But that isn't his problem.

He sends the TARDIS hurtling through time and space again, and wonders if he isn't just running-- from what, he doesn't know.

The TARDIS knows, and tries to make him understand, as she always does.

_In fire and in deathcold, still I am there..._

(-)

The TARDIS dumps him in a concert, of all places, where a confused alien refugee is accidentally scrambling people's minds.

Good luck it was a country-music concert, or he'd never have been able to tell the difference.

He's prowling the corridors outside the stadium or arena or whatever the hell it is, places with industrial carpet and bathrooms and sickly fluorescent lights that make the world seem more like an illusion than it already does.

He's found three of them so far. Two were just babbling, lost to the world, fragmented. One was angry, murderous, scared, and attacked him clumsily with a knife. Unlike him, though, that one was no murderer, and died by his own pocketknife, in a scene he does _not_ want to stick around to explain. But before he'd died, nightmare flashes-- something green and crablike and scaled, and _terrified_, bursting open the world with pain and flashes of light and sheer terror that the poor human's brain just couldn't handle.

Finding the problem was relatively simple this time, but the alien is terrified and has no intentions of trusting just _any_ strange new hominid who says it can help. In fact, he's yet to find any way of communicating with the alien at all, mostly because it keeps scuttling away when he tries.

"It's all interpretation," the band sings, and his brain kicks into gear. "To find the truth, you've gotta read between the lines."

If this creature had a _written_ language--

"Work out your own salvation," the band sings, as he turns around, looking for those strange scrapes he'd seen on the wall before. "That narrow path is hard to define; heaven's more than a place, it's a state of mind..."

"You don't know the half of it," he mutters cheerfully, finding the spot. Looks a little like Earth Morse Code. Maybe, if he can replicate that pattern, the creature will realize he's trying to communicate with it... If it's language at all... If, if, if, and the odds are stacked against him, but it's a chance...

Except the creature's not waiting for him to finish his message, he realizes when he turns around. It's invading his mind, like it did to all those poor concert-goers before-- except he's not a human, and he may not be the one who ends this with his brain scrambled.

But he's had a little practice at this, so he dodges the alien's desperate lunge into his mind and sends out a tendril of soothing, telling it he's the Doctor, he understands, he can help, everything will be fine now.

The creature may be primitive, but it's a powerful telepath and it learns far too quickly. It's only consoled for a moment before it reaches into his memory centers. He shuts it out, quickly, before it can drown itself in nine hundred years of memories, and warns it that there are things in there it does _not_ want to see, and where is its home? He can take it home.

The creature tells him its home is a small planet with a green sky and jagged trees, a small shack by the beach that it and its four parents and seven siblings have to rebuild every time a storm hits, and the children are driven crazy by it, but two of their parents just love it. It tells him it was on something very like a school field trip (boring as stellography, the teacher it hated was the tour guide with his boring mind-voice that always sent it to sleep and always got it yelled at when it did) when their space-bus was attacked (the ship was green it was so large it fired yellow laser thingies like the movies and it was so cool until the bus rocked with the impact and the screaming started), and all the children were evacuated to the three dimensions.

Its escape pod landed here (it had been such a long time, such a long time, it had thought it'd be rescued, where was everybody, were they all dead too?), and it was only trying to talk, only trying to _talk_, it didn't know it would break them, didn't know that they were both intelligent _and _not able to handle it, never meant to break them, will never be able to fix it, never make up for it, it's only 24 and it can't even vote yet, and it has this on its head...

It didn't see all his memories, he realizes with a sinking feeling, but it may have seen enough...

_It's okay_, he tells it, _it was a mistake, and you didn't mean to. That's okay. We all make mistakes. We can live with them. We do it all the time._

_I think maybe I can fix this,_ it says, and suddenly it's gone.

"No," he whispers, knowing that last feeling it had sent far too well. His hands slide frantically along the creature's green scales, up toward the the iris-less eyes, which are closed, closed tight, and not moving. "No, this wasn't your fault, you're barely more than a _child_--"

But old enough to kill, and old enough to die. The presence he's been sensing as constant panic for the last half hour is silent, calm, gone like every other voice that was ever in his head.

He looks behind him, at the woman who'd been in the wrong bathroom at the wrong time, who had been talking to herself about oysters, huddling against the wall.

She's moved on to weasels, now.

All this death, to no purpose. All this guilt, only to death.

Not heaven. Bore a passing resembelance to hell.

_What is this place? What's happening? What's wrong with me?_

Echoing and muffled and drowned by a hundred cheers, the band is still singing.

"You ain't going crazy, it's all in your head..."

(-)

Another hour, another town; he thinks this one might actually be Earth, though he hasn't put too much effort into confirming that. Little city, near mountains, and he's been here before. There was some sort of anachronism he'd detected here, something that had no business being on Earth, particularly not in _this_ time-- but the signal disappears and he curses to himself. Could've been an anomaly. Could've been important.

Well, he'll never know now.

"Hold on," says someone, as he turns to leave.

"What?" He looks back at him. A scrawny boy, in worn, dirty off-white, holding a piece of charcoal and a pad.

"I'm-- drawing things. Could you stay there, a moment? Just stand still."

He blinks for a moment and obeys. His habit of wearing anachronistic clothing, he notes to himself, may very well get him killed some day.

Hard to break old habits, at least when death's like this.

"Shouldn't take long," the boy says, scratching away.

The Doctor looks at him and remembers where he's seen this city before. "What year is it, d'you know?"

"Uh-- 1883," the boy says, frowning in concentration. "How did you not know that?"

"Long story," he says, and his eyes flicker to the volcano. "Slipped my mind."

"I've had days like that."

"No," he says, "you haven't." But he probably will. One day like that, at least.

_This makes no sense_, he realizes. _None of it does. It's all exactly how it used to be-- exactly how I left it-- except no, it _isn't_, because it would make sense if it did. If it was _exactly_ the same, then I'd clearly be living in my own little fantasy world, and I think I could live like that. Or-- be dead like that. Exist like that. _

_But it _is_ different. It _has_ changed, and I don't understand why that would be. It's too painful for heaven, too normal for hell, too unpredictable for hallucination, too scattershot for limbo... _

_It's like life, isn't it? A lot like life. A lot like I never died at all._

_Is that what it's like, then? You just go on and never even notice what's happened? The same thing, forever?_

_That's too much like immortality. I won't believe that._

_What, then?_

"Just _one_ more second," the boy says. "You clearly aren't good at standing still, but just _one_ more second."

He's never been good at standing still, no-- but since when is he terrified of it, too?

_Immortality-- that's the scariest thing-- I've outlived enough to know. But it's my time, now; that's come and passed; it's supposed to be _over_, why isn't there a difference? _

_This city will burn, this boy will burn, and I'll be elsewhere, still alive, or still existing, like I always do--_

_And _there_ is the problem. Why do people still die in the afterlife? _

_Why are people still dying?_

_Why am I still here..._

The boy's charcoal stills for a moment, as he stares at the Doctor with a look of slightly bewildered horror. Then he turns to his sketch again, face inches from the paper, making short, quick lines in some sort of detail work.

"Just one second," he says, a bit more distantly than before; "I can't do this bit from memory, I know that already. Just let me... there. That's good. I'll clean it up later, yes. Want to see?"

The boy holds it up. He doesn't really want to see, and can't very well from this distance, but he knows one thing: he got the eyes right.

The rest, though... the rest is a little bit of a surprise.

_Almost as if..._

He roots around in his pockets for a bit of change from this era and finds something that should easily suffice. "Here. You keep it. Thanks. Good sketch."

"I-- what _is_ this? Is this thing _gold_?"

"Possibly." He's already moving again.

"Hold on a sec!" cries the boy. "I-- I'm not stupid, you know-- you_ know_ something, don't you? You _know_ something!"

Oh, yes. He knows something. He knows pretty close to everything. He knows.

"Nope," he says loudly, and not entirely to the starving artist. "Don't know a thing."

"You're lying! I saw your eyes!"

The voice is almost too faint to hear, but he runs from it anyway.

Another city that will burn. Another people that will die.

Everyone dying, but him.

_But I did die. I did die, so why is this still happening!_

He likes the feel of running, and runs all the way back to his ship.

The TARDIS is beginning to wonder if he'll ever stand still.

(-)

When they arrest him again in Neo-Osaka, he's too tired to ask why.

_For one thing, you've been running for two months straight. Maybe that's why you're so tired?_

He doesn't listen to the voice of reason. He's too tired, probably from the running.

The detectives come to his cell, all sunglasses indoors and flashy uniforms and retro-suave, and he gathers they want to execute him.

Somehow, he's rather inclined to let them.

Unfortunately, there's a prison break within ten minutes of his decision, and he's not yet fool enough to stay in a cell with an open door. He's tempted for a moment to find out exactly what it is he's supposed to have done this time-- and whether he's actually guilty or not-- but he just goes back to the TARDIS, back to the console, back the hell out of there.

He could go to that lovely little ice planet, he could drop by Barcelona--

_"Doctor."_

The voice stops him in his tracks, because it's deep with the knowledge of all of time, and it sounds like the most familiar voice in all the world. It's quiet and loving and sad, and he is bound to turn toward it.

It's a faint, hominid-seeming, figure, made entirely of a very familiar golden-white light.

_"You have to stop. Stop moving for five seconds and think. I promise you, you can go dashing about again as soon as you're finished, but you need to understand this now, because all this running is killing you."_

"...You're the TARDIS," he says, sounding a lot more sure than he feels. Yes, it's his TARDIS, he's sure of that-- but she seems to be so much _more_ that it seems an insanely inadequate name to apply--

_"Yes,"_ she says. _"And you're my Doctor. And you're alive."_

He blinks at her. "What?"

_"You didn't die, Doctor. You lived. That is the truth. That is what you've been running from."_

"You're kidding me." He shakes his head. "This is the great thing I'm supposed to've been running from? Why would I be running from being _alive_?"

_"Because it means a trillion beings died at your hands, while you survived. You don't know what to think about that. You can't process that. You don't think you deserve it. So you've been running, but it's really time to stop."_

He shakes his head. "First off, I _can't_ be alive. I erased my entire _planet_ from _history_. I was _from_ my planet. I erased myself from history, too. Only reason they'd ever give me the right--"

_"So you feel it was a betrayal of them not to die when they did? And it makes you the only one in the universe left to blame, doesn't it? And you know they will, because you are already."_

"But I _did_ die when they did. I felt it."

_"You regenerated, Doctor. You know that. You always knew. You know how that feels."_

"But I can't be alive." He's still shaking his head; he hasn't stopped. "I can't be. It's impossible. It's wrong. It _can't_ be!"

_"I know. But it is."_

Now he can hear the endless compassion in that voice, and he realizes he's shaking. "It doesn't make any _sense_! All the proper Time Lords-- all Gallifrey-- all the Daleks-- all those planets the Daleks destroyed-- all those people who die before I fix things-- all those people who die helping me fix things-- all those people who die because I fix things-- all those people I've killed-- I should be dead-- I SHOULD HAVE DIED WITH THEM!"

A silence. She touches his cheek, and the face he can't quite see is full of love. _"But you didn't. You know that. You've always known that."_

"...It would have been the only proper thing to do."

_"My Doctor. You've never been proper."_

"...Can't even die properly," he says, and stops running.

Gallifrey is dead. The Daleks are dead.

He is alive.

"Why?" he asks, voice cracking. "_Why!_"

Why him, why always him? Why him as the universe's favorite? Why him singled out for such cruelty? Why always him?

_"Why always you... would you rather a million people take on this burden piecemeal?"_

No. And probably they wouldn't do it half so well.

_"Of course not. Not in a million years."_

He starts to cry, and she holds him, singing faint lullabies of time and space and adventure and forever and everything living, before everything died. And maybe he's been running, but he knew, and he already knows what to do.

_Ask any silly human. How do you endure tragedy, insanity, death, pain? How do you go on after something precious to you dies? How do you go on?_

_Most of them will tell you they don't know, but most of them secretly do, the second they have to._

_The secret of coping is, there is no secret. To go on living, you keep on breathing and occasionally try to find some food. There is no secret, no magic way to do your penance and move on._

_You cry. And you break. And time moves on, and drags you with it._

_Any silly human understands._

_And if they can do it..._

_"If I promised you that everything would be okay,"_ she says softly, _"would you believe me?"_

"Well, I'd have to, wouldn't I? Given what you are?"

_"So that's a no."_ Faint amusement, and so much love he almost starts to cry again. _"Would it help?"_

"...I don't know. Maybe if I could believe it."

_"It will always hurt. But there's nothing you can do."_

He shakes his head. It will always hurt. He will always remember. He will always be obsessed with making sure he doesn't make this same mistake twice.

But he can't change a past that never happened, and he can't regret a choice that saved the universe.

Well, he can feel _guilty_ about it, but he can't strictly _regret_ it.

_"It wasn't your fault. You had no choice. And you know what would have happened if you hadn't been my Champion, my Doctor again."_

True. Isn't sure that's helping much.

_"That's because you're my Doctor,"_ she sighs, and holds him tight.

The Time Vortex, the heart of all time and space... and she loves him. To the point of slightly disturbing possessiveness.

This explains a truly dizzying number of things...

_"I can't stay with you. Even this has been a drain on your power."_

"That's all right," he says. "I'll be fine."

She smiles. _"You won't be fine. You'll be fantastic."_

The light fades, and he's left exactly where he started, in the console room. Except with two extra months and a nice leather jacket and new pants and a jumper that should all be very fetching. He's not sure; somehow he hasn't found the time to look in a mirror yet. Too busy running.

But he's stopped, now.

Which leads to the question... where to?

The TARDIS beeps. He checks the screen; there's an anachronistic transmission coming from early 21st century Earth.

"Siren," he mutters fondly, and flips the switch.

Running is what he does.

(-)

_Did I want love? Did I need to know?_

_Why does it always feel like I'm caught in an undertow?_

The TARDIS only ever takes him to two sorts of places: the places that need him to be there, and the places that he needs to be.

On Earth in 2005, there is a shopgirl named Rose.

She is helpful. She is charming. She is delightfully quick on the uptake.

She listens when he says everything will be all right.

Something in her reminds him of the goddess who lit his way.

Something in her reminds him of what it's like to see the universe when it's all brand new.

She has a mirror, and he sees himself for the first time in-- god-- much longer than two months... And you know what? He isn't half bad.

She is good at gymnastics.

She is _excellent_ at running.

He holds out his hand. She takes it. Together, they run for their lives.

He can't believe he'd ever forgotten it. This is the only way to run...

(-)


End file.
